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It's strange. Villeneuve clearly gets the story on some level. The cuts seem reasonable to me (even Alia), and a number of the changes, as someone pointed out, externalize the internal conflict. But at the same time, it's all wrong.
It's as though everything is a symbol for itself, to be displayed with maximum impressiveness no matter how little sense it makes. There's no subtlety, it's just beating the audience over the head. And the dialog is horrible, lacking gravitas and the nuances found in the book, with no distinction between formality and familiarity. And the delivery, especially by the two leads, makes them sound like whiny American children, sulky and pouting. But Chalamet breaks out of that at the end of the 2nd film, after he gets his vision, so it doesn't seem to be the actors' fault, and some of the other actors do give good performances. Frankly, I wonder about Villeneuve's command of the English language. And then the music is, well, dramatic, if not actually what I'd call "music". More like creaking bed springs turned up to 11, or an old house settling. And the architecture was as though someone thought "big" was a sufficient description.
On the other hand, the anisopters were cool. Shields were cool. The hunter-seeker was cool. I'm glad they gave the Fremen some sand-colored cloaks (although IIRC, in the books the sand on Arrakis was grey, but that's not important). The worms were great, especially the riding. (Although I still wonder at the dimensions of the worm described in the book: "a small specimen, only one hundred and ten meters long and twenty-two meters in diameter".) I like the military use of portable suspensors. I thought Ferguson did a great job as Jessica, and I thought Duncan-Brewster did a fine job as Liet-Kynes in the first one.
Irulan was just wrong, with again no gravitas and no sense of grace. She seemed practically autistic, very intently focused on some aspects of what was going on, while speaking in a quasi-monotone that made it clear that her history recordings were performance. I actually laughed out loud in the theater when the Reverend Mother described her as one of her best students (or whatever it was she said to that effect), since her portrayal in the books is quite the opposite (or at least, everyone likes to put her down by telling her that).
I get why it was convenient to externalize some of Paul's decisions by making the south be full of people who will follow him without question. But the repeated use of the term "fundamentalists" was jarring. What fundamentals, exactly? Obviously everyone in the audience gets what he means, but again I think it symptomatic of the problems with the dialog. It's not timeless, it's dated. "True believers" would be a more appropriate term. Same with Chani's argument about how the Fremen don't need an outsider to save them; it's trying to use current politics to inform our understanding of characters, but it sounds like a rant that came out of nowhere.
And the slow motion. And the endless scenes of people descending ramps. Or people arrayed in grids. Or slow motion people descending ramps in front of grids of other people. I came out of the first one thinking that if they'd just kept everything normal speed, they could have shaved half an hour off of the movie, and saved everyone in the audience half an hour of life. And the combat, ugh: I blame "300".
Agreed with everything except this. Many such scenes in the first movie were jaw dropping and deeply mysterious. In the second movie it was just rushed and lacked the visual effort.
I just re-watched the first half of "Blade Runner 2049", and I found a lot of the same visual tics in there, but for some reason they didn't bug me as much. I still recall ranting a bit, whenever it was that I first saw it, about how the original "Blade Runner" had a packed, bustling, "lived-in future" on the ground level, but we don't see much of that in 2049; it's mostly a series of trips to scenic vistas, interspersed with K's apartment or the police office, like a video game where you explore a new level and then hang out in the vehicle/lobby in between levels. (Also Hans Zimmer's bedsprings sounded like an acceptable substitute for Vangelis.)
Possibly I've gotten more jaded over time. I never saw the TV show "Lost", but from what I've heard, it was infamous for there being no "there" there. The mystery never led to anything, because it was purely there to create an effect in the audience. In "Dune 2", I'd contrast this with the sandworm riding, which I think was great, and which gave me that sense of awe while being an integral part of the story.
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